The Winter Files
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU/ AU Hiatus. After the R-Fall, John learns that Sherlock is alive, and learns the true nature of the young beginnings of the consulting detective when Captain Steve Rogers shows up at the doorstep of Baker Street with a file from SHIELD containing Sherlock's service record, and a file for one Sergeant Barnes, that he needed Sherlock , and now John instead, to help him find...
1. Chapter 1: Two Men And A Cage

**The Winter Files~**

**For the Friend Who sticks with me to the "end of the line"~**

**Chapter One: Two Men And A Cage~**

A pale hand stretches out to the moon, and shakes like the leaf that withers in the breath of the wind.

He still hears Moriarty in his head, all the time.

" You're gonna love being dead, Sherlock."

_Love...being...Implying purpose and conscious._

_He loved...He's dying to save..._

"Games..." says a voice in the dark.

_American accent, cracked tone, hasn't had water in 3.5 days, comes from a direction level with me. Fellow prisoner._

"Games..." Sherlock replies, leaning against the bars of the bird cage he is swinging between heaven and earth with.

"Yeah...like cages..and pits...and swinging in between life and death. Barely awake, barely remembering who you are...why you did what you did...even though you probably lost your soul for it..."

"Yes, or _who _it was for..." Sherlock replies.

The winter wind howls between them like a pair of wolves discussing the shares of their bones. It will truly be a meager feast, when the East Wind and the night take these two war-ravaged souls, at the tip of the thirst dying tongue.

" _Who _it was for...Now _there's _a conversation starter..."laughs the American.

Sherlock smiles, knowingly in the man's direction. Tonight they share the Pit, and that is an Empty Chalice that never runs dry of emptiness. They will be drinking very deep of their shared loneliness tonight...and there will be echoes of their voices, now that one is aware that the other can speak...

"Obviously delirium hasn't gotten to you yet...Implying that we are having a conversation...and I'm not just a voice inside your head..."

"Ha!, I'm from Brooklyn, man. The voices in my head have never had velvet English accents. Least of all ones that sound like college professors. There's no way I could have dreamed you up..."

" Likewise, I'd have to be very delirious for the voice in my head to sound like an American sniper..."

" _How'd _you know I was a sniper?"

"The position you're sitting in , of course, implied by the degree of your shadow's angle, poised for the killing shot. You're a marksman...a highly trained marksman...And you're American, didn't guess that, you've admitted to it..."

"You've been in jail too long, pal. Observing all that..."

"Oh, trust me, I've always been like this..." Sherlock laughed.

"Got a name?"

"It's Sherlock...You?"

"Sergeant James...Buchanan..Barnes. Or just "Bucky"..."

"...'Bucky' ?"

"Hey, don't knock it,...it may be weird, but it's my name, and I like it, a'right?"

"Alright, alright! In all fairness, Sherlock isn't exactly the name most mothers would choose either..."

Silence...

"So _who _we did it for...Yeah...a conversation starter right there..." Sergeant Barnes laughed, proceding into a hacking fit that frightened a flock of crows roosting in the cliffs about them.

Sherlock swallowed..."John Watson...An army medic...Bravest of soldiers...My one friend..." Sherlock said to the night, and to the American soldier who would understand.

There was silence as if he was listening, weighing it in the scales of his head and heart.

" Captain Steven Rogers...best friend since childhood...The infamous 'Captain America'...Been trying to save him from my bosses for years..."

"And who are your 'bosses'?"

"That's what you're here to find out, eh, Sherlock? That's why they've got you in the cage, isn't it? Sherlock Holmes...Yeah, I recognized that name right off the bat. You're the English super- sleuth that Agent Peggy Carter tutored as the child ' science of deduction' prodigy for MI6 and SHIELD..."

Silence, Sherlock feeling he'd been compromised, feeling absolutely stupid for speaking the name of John Watson in this man's presence.

"Don't worry, kid, I may be forced to work for Hydra, but I sure don't "Hail" them. Your secret's safe with me...As for secrets,...you can ask away , all my bosses' dirty laundry right on the line...It's not like I've got anything left to lose, yeah?"

"Because you're dying?"

"Deduced that how, ace?"

Sherlock scoffed, and couldn't help but smile.

Yes, he'd heard of "Bucky" Barnes from his nanny, Ms. Carter...


	2. Chapter 2: Sherlock Holmes Is Alive

**Chapter 2: Sherlock Holmes Is Alive ~**

John is laying on the floor in his own filth again, and wakes up groggy and disgusted. No, he hasn't developed an alchohol problem, it just happens to be that his emotions make him so distraught that his stomach twists, and this is the end result. It's probably some pyschological condition of chronic thought-induced nasuea, but he'll be dead before he goes back to his therapist. And dead before he leaves the flat where _he _ lived with him. Together like brothers, once upon a time...

* * *

He fetches a bottle of disinfectants and some wipes, and sets to cleaning up the floor where he passed out first, when he hears it again.

"Doctor Watson?!"

A voice, calling out to him from the street. Not one he knows, and with a decidedly American accent.

Mrs. Hudson is out with her lady friends, as it is already almost tea time, so she's not opening the door anytime soon. John lately sleeps in long binges to make up for his long insomniac episodes, again emotionally induced.

He rubs his forehead , annoyed with himself. Sherlock has been dead for a long time now; it's time to be past all of this.

Dead. Oh, why did he allow himself to think it! _Dead. _And gone. And...never coming back.

"HEY!" calls the voice from the street. "Doctor! Please, it's really important! "

Something about the desperation in the man's voice...

John stands full upright, and goes to his kitchen sink. He washes his face, making sure the facial hair he's sporting now is clean ,at least. He peals out of his shirt, because it's filthy and leaves it in the sink. If its a man at the door, he won't care ( at least he hopes not...) and if there's a woman with him, maybe she'll find him attractive ( the old John Watson would have been very eager for that, this phantom version smiles wryly at the laughable idea that the eye of society might ever smile on him again ).

In that spirit, John shuffles downstairs to the door, and thrusts it open.

His eyebrows fly up in surprise.

Because there stands Captain Steve Rogers, the immortalized "Captain America" , who was all over the telly with that airstrike from Elsewhere that happened in New York ( John had actually been seriously disturbed by that, and had gone off on a long tangent of questions about it to the invisible spirit of Sherlock, who he hoped might have an answer for them all, and who never replied. John had sunk even deeper into depression, thus, remembering that of course Sherlock was not going to come up with some clever deduction to solve all the chaos behind the scandal in New York...Sherlock was dead...)

* * *

"Doctor Watson, right?" asks Rogers, swallowing, almost shyly.

John nods, still unsure what to say to the famous super-soldier.

"Sherlock Holmes lives here too, yeah?"

Oh...

"No,...Well...he did, but not anymore..." John says stiffly, and swallows.

"He ,he ,he ..." John lets out a gasp, closes his eyes, and forces himself to address this man as a commanding officer,with the respect he feels the Captain deserves.

"He jumped from the roof of St. Barts about 2 years ago, sir. He's...dead."

Finally, he has accepted it. Aloud.

"Oh my God...you mean...they didn't tell you?"

John looked up, bewildered.

"I saw it with my own eyes..." he defended, almost harshly.

The Captain shook his head.

" John, I'm...really sorry to come here, like this, obviously you're not well. I'm even more sorry that I have to be the one to tell you that Mycroft Holmes is as big a liar as Commander Fury. "

" What...are you on about?"

Because the Captain was respectful, John found he could not be angry with him for making what seemed like such an out-of-left-field accusation about Mycroft. He didn't know who Commander Fury was, but judging by Rogers' tone , they must have butted heads about some ethical issues quite a bit in the past.

"John, I know this is gonna be pretty hard for you to believe. I was sent here by Commander Fury ,formerly of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was an allied intelligence division, kinda like MI6 or the CIA in the States, and actually we did jobs for them both. My mission was to bring you Mr. Holmes' file, and a file for Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, a...dear friend of mine...who is being held hostage by the K.G.B, and that I was informed Sherlock would be able to find. Sherlock Holmes, is actually the child prodigy of what we called in S.H.I.E.L.D the "science of deduction" or the " alternate form of intelligence seeking". Having known Sherlock , I can spare you the lecture, because you already know what it is, but before Sherlock it was all theory. Agent Carter of S.H.I.E.L.D, an intelligence agent during the War ( uh, by War, I mean World War 2...) as she got too old for field work, became a nanny for children in Witness Protection. When she was Sherlock's nanny, she recognized that he had the potentials to turn the theory into reality, and taught him how to do it. From the age of 7, he developed the skills to become the "Consulting Detective" and was taken out of his abusive home, and placed in S.H.I.E.L.D protection, becoming the offical "Consulting Detective"of S.H.I.E.L.D ( which had different child labor laws, you see obviously) and later would work ,on special occasions, for MI6, because he was actually highly overqualified for their work. He is the special agent, particulary assigned for your protection, which is why he planted the little bug in Mike Stamford's ear about needing a flatshare, because he already had intel on your living conditions, and needed a casual, appearing civilian means of rendevouz with you. He doubled as the consulting detective for New Scotland Yard for 5 years ,drying out from forced drug addiction in an Afghani cartel, waiting for you to be sent home from the War on Terror, having already been invalided himself, and in a complicated situation, he couldn't go back in for you, because he'd become a danger to you. I'm sure sorry I have to be the one to tell you that this whole stint on Baker Street, posing as a police tipster, was actually just a diversion for what he was really doing. I have the files here if you don't believe me..."

Steve handed John a file with Sherlock's photographs at different stages of development, clipped to the front, and stamped with the word "INVICTUS". There was another file in his hand, that said "BARNES, J.B..."

John was gaping , shaking his head in disbelief, flipping through the file. There were photos and reports ,some of Sherlock, some created by him, of the Afghan War, particularly the War that John remembered, with special focus on John's status in it, stating in Sherlock's words that he "has medical skills, and general healing abilities the like of which I have never seen, and I have been exposed to a vast demographic of physicians. Doctor Watson may be the qualified individual for the "X-Medical" unit of S.H.I.E.L.D , capable of researching and healing wounds and deficiencys found only in the mutant hybrids scattered through our population, a.k.a the mystery-enshrouded "X-Men", as well as treating medical cases of scientific phenomenon, such as the victims of post -Hydra experimentation..."

John looked up at Steve in suspensful amaze.

Steve nodded.

"It gets..harder than that. John,you remember the drug they used in Baskerville to trick you into believing you were being hunted by a Hell-hound?"

John nodded, somehow already knowing where this was going.

"If I told you that you were dosed up with a hybrid of that drug by Sherlock himself the night before he jumped, and then that he tricked you into thinking he had jumped, to make his disappearance and death very believable...would you believe me , now that I've brought you proof? This conversation would have gone much smoother if Mycroft had come clean to you the week after Sherlock left the country, and explained to you that he had to fake his death to disband the Moriarty Network, which had a special mission to destroy you, actually because of your friendship with Sherlock, and then because they found out that you had the qualifications to be the " X-Physician" as they're calling it, that you could be the doctor S.H.I.E.L.D. trained to reverse sick scientific experiments on people, which Professor Moriarty and Company excelled at."

John's knees were knocking now, and he slumped forward, the Captain catching him around the shoulders.

"..So...you're...telling me...that..." John licked his lips...

"Sherlock Holmes...is alive?"

Steve nodded.

" Yeah...And...it's our mission to ...locate him..."

John blacked out.


	3. Chapter 3 : Breaking Away

**Chapter 3: Breaking Away~**

The sun bled through the slits of their cages ,like the first rays of light slipping into the consciousness of the comatose coming awake.

They had conspired. Today was the day.

"Sergeant Barnes..." Sherlock gasped, voice now so hoarse from lack of water he could barely mutter.

Bucky sat up in his cage, and stretched a metallic hand through the bars.

"Well, Sherlock, it's like this...either we make a break for it today, or sit around and wait for them to kill us...Which wouldn't take much, at least not like this, ha ?

"No, Sergeant, but we haven't got much time. If what we have overheard our captors saying is true, then Captain Rogers and Doctor Watson are headed in this direction. That would prove to be lethal to everything we have attempted to secure, for years."

"For _decades, _kid! Yeah, I know I look pretty good for 95, but don't forget I outdate you by like 60 years. "Bucky teased, and swallowed, looking down into the Abyss.

"A'right, so just like we rehearsed. Old fashioned way!"

Sherlock swallowed. It had been a harrowing experience, climbing to the top of his cage, using a piece of the galvanized super metal from Bucky's false arm as a saw to rig the hook said cage hung from to where, tilted at a certain angel and given the right push, it would slide along the chain like a zipline. Tilt just a little too much to the left or right, and one dies the death of free-falling.

"Now remember, Sherlock, lean forward, and clench your knees. Be steady, kid, y'know 'cause "if the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, an' down will come baby cradle and all"blah, blah, blah, never mind. O-k, let's get this show on' da road! "

"Have you...ever done anything like this before?" Sherlock asked, swallowing, trying to resume his confident world's-smartest-sleuth attitude.

"Mmm...once,...twice? I forget. I'm old! You'll live, and if you don't, it sure beats bein' in a bird cage, right?"

"Wait!"

The antique American sniper was already in action though. 'No guts, no glory.' Of course, Sherlock should have expected an icon of American history to have a very American-spirited attitude about life and death, and crashing through the heights.

Bucky swung his cage into Sherlock's. Like pieces to a pin ball machine the two of them were shooting across the ravine, sickening-rapidly, headed straight for the rocks, and the brokeness that was become their salvation.

Sherlock's eyes were wide open ,and his nostrils burned with the rush of air.

"WOOOHOOOO!"shouted Bucky at the top of his lungs, not caring who heard.

The bright lights of Hydra's hideout lit up like lighting across the Styx, trying to beam them back into the Purgatory that was their dwelling, and so much worse than Hell.

But the cages had broken like eggs on the cold ,black stone, and the wind rolled them away, Bucky's arm casting off sparks, Sherlock making tiny little irritated sounds like a bird shot out of a cannon.

They landed in a heap ,deep in the forest of what was once the Soviet Union.

Bucky sat up, laughing like a jackal.

Sherlock lay on his belly, coughing and sputtering, almost delirous.

Bucky picked him up by the scruff of his collar, and hauled him to his feet.

"CONGRATULATIONS, KID, WE'RE OUT OF THAT HELL HOLE!" Bucky cried, with joy.

"John..."Sherlock gasped, skipping the emotional brevity of freedom entirely.

"Oh, right, we've got to radio Mycroft...Ok, next stop a village...somewhere...Else we can walk all the way to Kiev."

"I'll swim rivers of my own blood if need be." Sherlock growled, glaring angrily back at his prison.


	4. Chapter 4: A Mission For Doctor Watson

**Chapter 3: A Mission For Doctor Watson~**

John's head is spinning , as he takes a seat on the super-tech plane that Captain Nicolas Fury from the secret intelligence services has sent to fetch himself and Captain Rogers.

Their dialouge with Fury was very brief.

"Well, it's good to finally meet the infamous Doctor Watson!" Fury had said, grabbing John's hand up in a powerful shake.

"It's good to meet whoever the blazes you are. An explanation would be nice?" John had quipped ,raising an eyebrow.

"Well, the best explanation I can give you is that your friend is alive, but in trouble. And when Sherlock Holmes in in trouble, the whole world is in trouble, so it's our job to bail him out."

Fury had chuckled darkly,then, and called nonchalantly over his shoulder, "Leavin' it in your hands, Cap!" And then he was gone. John hadn't liked it. He'd been living for years with the idea that Sherlock was dead. And now these mysterious men had showed up at his doorstep, told him Sherlock was alive, and that he needed to follow them on some psychologically impossible mission to save him, and a supposedly killed (or missing in action ,one) American sniper by the name of James Barnes.

John doesn't know which is more disturbing. The fact that these people have come to him with this wild of a story, or the fact that he blindly dove in head first and joined them. That he's sitting in an airplane's cockpit right now beside the immortal Captain America, back in his military fatigues, head bowed over his knees.

"You know...I get this. I mean I know exactly what it feels like...Losing the person you care about the most...Probably the closest thing you'll ever get to having a brother...And then strangers come knocking at your door...telling you that your mission isn't over...When you know it ended the day he fell..."

John looks up, eyes bright and wide, like grenades gone off.

"Day...he...fell...?"

Steve was staring at John intently, jaw clenched, brow creased like something was hurting deep in the recesses of his stomach.

"...Sergeant Barnes...was...uhh..." the Captain's teeth barred, like there was no way he could choke out the words.

"Well, I suppose I should start over...I called him "Bucky"." he looked away and smiled.

"He was...my best friend...Sometimes...he was my only friend. There are a'lot'ta guys that say I don't have a dark side. But that's not true...Bucky...was my one weakness. He-he was my dark side..."

Steve stared at his hands now, and shook his head.

"I don't know how much you know about me, but I'm actually a lot older than I look. I am a World War 2 veteran. Buck and I grew up together in Brooklyn, and when we grew up we served together in the U.S. Army. We also served with Agent Peggy Carter, Sherlock's nanny, probably never mentioned her to you because of protocol, and well, Sherlock's got a reputation for being more of a machine than a human being, not really revealing a whole lot of personal information, or at least that's what they say...I'm taking it by the way you've grieved for him, that's probably not the case. In fact, I'd say that Sherlock Holmes was probably the same person to you that Bucky Barnes was to me. Your brother...Kinda like the other side of you...your dark side..."

John nodded, feeling a knot forming in his throat. This guy had read John and his relationship with Sherlock Holmes like a book. It was almost unnerving...

"Well...we had a mission...It's kind of hard to explain, especially if you don't know your history too well,but we were practically hijacking a train. And it turned hot pretty quick. It was only natural for Buck to try and protect me; I was actually really puny when we were kids, and he had to save my butt a whole buncha times...In the action, Bucky ended up being knocked out of the window of the train, and got dangled over a really deep cliff in the mountains. I reached for him, but the rail he was holding on to was breaking...I guess he knew he'd take me down with him..."

John felt his heart stop. _Captain America _ was sitting next to him, in tears.

"I watched my brother in arms fall through mid air to his death just the same as you did. The day he died, so did I. I don't know how to explain it to you...but I don't have to. Sorry, I just can't tell this story without cracking, which is why I've never told it before..." he started rubbing the back of his fist at his eyes,and breathed a ragged sob. John sat dumbfounded, wondering why the hardened soldier would open up to him so..._openly? _

"I really hate how this has gone down, John. It really, I mean you've gotta be just as confused as I was when I woke up out of my coma! To be honest with you ,though, no one explained this mission to me either. They just told me that miraculously Bucky Barnes was alive, and that if I wanted to find him, I'd have to get in contact with Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective of all secret intelligence history. Then they tell me that he's temporarily out of commission, and if I wanna find him, I've got to team up with you...They tell me you're the only one that will be able to find Sherlock, because Sherlock will want to find you. They tell me the guy has gone to insane lengths to keep you out of the cross hairs..." Steve looked at John who was now in tears himself, and he didn't have to explain it, because Steve knew...

"Ok, so ,let's start over!" Steve smiled, and laughed, extending a hand.

"Hi, I'm Steve Rogers.I'm coming to consult Mr. Holmes concerning my very dear friend Bucky who's been missing in action for 70 plus years...I've been run through the circus rings of shady secret service agents, just like you. Sherlock Holmes is the only guy I trust to give me real answers, not just about what happened to my friend, but about everything else that I've been involved in since I woke up from a long Ice-nap. Sherlock isn't here, but you are. We're soldiers, and its our mission to protect the people we care about. Our friends are both in trouble. Doctor Watson, will you help me rescue them? Its not on behalf of shifty agents...I'm asking you, man to man..."

John smiled, and took the Captain's hand, and they shook on it firmly.

"Oh God, yes!" John whispered.


	5. Chapter 5: Machines

**Chapter 5: Machines~**

"They'll come for us..." Sherlock mused, wind catching in his long dark coat, and sliding up his back like a teasing sword. The road to Kiev was silent as graveyard song, and cold...

Sergeant Barnes slowly came to his side, and drew a deep breath of the air. Sherlock studied his mysterious companion, making rapid deductions. The Winter Soldier was very apply named. So little of himself remained beneath the rock solid ice exterior, that it was hard to believe the words of endearment he had said about Captain Rogers, or the fact that he had been rebelling against his masters for 70 odd years all on behalf of Rogers, and when this was discovered, always resulting in serious torment that would include a temporary brain washing.

"Law of the jungle ,kid. A'course they're coming for us. Probably already set the hounds loose from the Gates of Hell..."

"You will pay dearly for all of your rouge missions, I take it. No one could have expected a slave on such a short leash to act of his own will, and assasinate enemies of America, as well as enemies of the Red Room, your masters. It's almost commendable in their eyes... Your daring...They'll have to devise an adequate punishment for you ..." Sherlock grinned at the Sergeant's cleverness.

Bucky smiled ,wryly.

"Yeah, I suppose that's how it'll be. I don't care where you're from the whole "double agent" thing is seriously frowned on... You're not getting off so easy either ,Sherlock. You broke into that hell hole to confirm your calculations, and now you know for a fact how deep Moriarty had gotten with Hydra. The Consulting Criminal was basically their chief sponsor before the end of it all. His guys are the ones that ratted me out in the end, and I guess they were getting the "water to a boil" in the pot they wanted to cook me in, when they found you, and it delayed the whole brutal execution thing. Now that the two of us conspired together to break outta that place, with what we _know..._"

"We will be corporately punished. Probably assasinated, but...not in the usual "bullet between the eyes" fashion...No they mean to be creative...This will probably call for some human experimentation..."

"Gee..I wonder if you'll get to have a bionic arm too before its all said and done? I don't know if that will be amazing, or if the whole matching metal arms thing will just be girly? I guess it's nylons and red lipstick for us next, Sherlock."

"Whatever it is, the two of us are going to die, and rather beautifully. But before we do I suppose we'd best get on with trying to spill these secrets to my brother, and guaranteeing that Captain Rogers and John Watson willl not be intermingled with the whole blood bath..."

"Ehhh...no...the thought of Steve wearing lipstick is a bit too disturbing even for my fried and scrambled brain...You're right, Sherlock. We are machines of war, and its time we finish our last mission. If God hears robots' prayers, I hope he hears me when I ask for those guys on the homefront to make it out of this ok. And I really hope, if that's the word I can use, that they don't have to watch the show..."

Sherlock looked to the sky ,at the sun shining white like a wraith of mercy through the clouds.

"Amen." he whispered, remembering the day he made John watch him fall...


	6. Chapter 6 Infiltrate

**Chapter 6: Infiltrate~**

Natasha Romanov was the ultimate spy. She had secrets, and knew secrets so deep that even the dead didn't know they were hiding. So she wasn't surprised when Fury called her in, wanting her to infiltrate Steve's mission to Ukraine, concerning Holmes and Barnes.

"So it's pretty serious if you don't trust the Captain with it?" she laughed, strolling into the outdoor cafe where Fury was hiding in plain sight, drinking a soda, and reading a magazine.

Fury looked up, and swallowed.

"As serious as world domination."

Nat raised an eyebrow.

"Ooh, sounds spooky!" she teased, and plopped down at the table, with the fruit smoothie she was drinking. This looked like the rendevous of a man and and his teenaged daughter, not of the world's chief secret intelligence officer and his highest ranking spy.

" Only because it is. _Very _spooky. But Nat, it's not that I don't trust the Captain with it...It's that I do. I trust him to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing will get you killed..."

" Especially if Hydra gets to the Winter Soldier and wipes his brain again, right?"

"I'm actually more worried about the Winter Soldier's potential successor."

"Oh, yeah, Holmes on mind-control would be a world's worst nightmare..."

"Well, see it's like this. Barnes is dying...He might not have more than a month or two if my leads are right..."

"Cancer, or is it just 'cause he's old and been out of kyro for too long?"

" Worse. It's the location device that they bugged him with back in the day. Our level GPS was a Jules Verne fantasy back then, so they had to improvise a little bit. The thing that they bugged Barnes' with, the thing they used to relocate him anytime his head started to clear up, and he started to act of his own volition,... Whatever that thing is made out of is killing him, slow and painfully. Unless they can get it out, which would be a horrific procedure, he's as good as dead."

"Why send Cap after him in the first place, if that's how it stands?"

"Because the Cap's not going alone. John Watson's going with him..."

Nat shook her head, lips forming the shape of the word "OH", like she was a naughty little kid let in on the world's dirtiest secret.

"So you want me to infiltrate, make sure Barnes gets to Watson?..."

"It's time to see if Sherlock Holmes' faith in the X Doctor was well founded. Let's see if he's got the skills, and if he does, he's one of us..."


	7. Chapter 7 Touchdown

**Chapter 7: Touchdown~**

Sherlock feels his stomach vibrating with the pain of legions of hornets. Oh, how he could kick himself when his calculations failed to factor in random variables, even though randomness is not truly logical to factor!

* * *

John feels like he's breathing through a syringe, when his feet hit the gravel packed ice.

He can't believe who's before his eyes. He simply cannot process this.

* * *

The old CB radio was wired, and its old veins were warmed with electricity again, but the message never left Bucky's lips. All the air was snatched out of him, the moment he looked up to see his oldest friend coming down the road to this remote village on the way to Kiev. How was this even possible? It wasn't supposed to happen!

* * *

Steve felt like he was frozen all over again. Frozen where he couldn't move, could barely breathe. All he could do was try to get straight in his head everything his eyes were showing him, and the events of the last few hours.

In the last few hours he had boarded a directed by SHIELD flight, heading God only knew where, in the company of Doctor Watson. He had set out with the understanding that he was searching for Bucky, who had lived through his fall after all, and had been forced to work for HYDRA for the last 70 years, as the assassin known as Winter Soldier. He was to understand that Sherlock Holmes could help him find Buck, and that Sherlock Holmes was also MIA, and that John Watson might be able to help him find him, and would have the skills to help both Sherlock and Bucky through recovery. A few hours into the flight he knew that they were heading for Ukraine, which was where Fury's trail for Holmes had gone cold. Bucky had completely disappeared from even Fury and Company's radar, and so, dare they say, they would actually have better chances finding the Consulting Detective.

What Steve was having a hard time processing was how it had been so easy to find the two of them. It had happened as if by Divine Providence. And they had found _both _of them, in an ancient shack in a village on the way to Kiev, where a radio from the War was located. Which meant that the two had teamed up.

* * *

Bucky shook his head, and stood upright, backing up, and backing up straight into Sherlock's chest. Sherlock was looking Steve up and down, rapidly deducing him, trying to solve without having to ask questions how Captain Roger's had located him, and further who had sent him. He was avoiding looking at John, and it was probably because John was staring at him witheringly, trying to demand explanations, but not being able to force words out of his throat.

Steve was just staring at Bucky. He hadn't seen him in the flesh for so long, he'd almost forgotten what he looked like. He was also horrified to see the metallic arm. Besides that, Buck didn't look well. He was wearing a roughed up leather jacket, and jeans that looked like they'd been put through a sand blaster. He had on a ratty green t-shirt, and over all a baseball cap with a faded brim. He was sporting the beginnings of a beard, and this somewhat hid how pale, almost blue he was in the face and around the lips. He was also probably 30 pounds underweight.

"How...?" Bucky began to ask.

"Oh, well that's not a question that is necessary for you to pose, Sergeant. It's too obvious; Nick Fury is behind this. He must have shown you my file, John?" Sherlock snapped, almost indignant that they had found them, only because they were now in grave danger too.

John did something that surprised everyone then. He shouted an explicit name at Sherlock, and then dove for him and threw his arms around him, clinging to him for dear life.

Steve didn't even look over at them. He very cautiously approached Bucky, stretching out a hand.

"Who... is Nick Fury?" Bucky whispered, confused, a brow raised, just as surprised to see Steve, as Steve was to see him.

"Never mind how I found you..." Steve gasped, and clapped a hand on Bucky's shoulder, coming a little closer and wrapping the other arm around his shoulders.

"Are…are you ok?"

Bucky smiled, mischievously.

"Been a long time, and no see, eh, Steve?" he laughed, and reached both the flesh and the metal arm around Steve's shoulders.

"Are you ok?..."Steve asked again, still shell shocked , talking to Bucky, and hugging him after roughly 70 years.

"It's been hell…Also, I've rebelled against HYDRA, me and the kid...and the bosses are coming to kill us...It's...bad… You two really are in danger coming to find us, we were just about to radio Mycroft Holmes and warn against it..."

"You...you look sick..."

There was silence.

"I am sick, Steve…"

Sherlock held John as close as he could, and tucked a hand in his ruffled golden hair.

"Captain Rogers…" Sherlock called, over John's shoulders..." I believe if you and John are to join company with us...we'll have to go into hiding ...There is a lot to explain...but basically the Sergeant and I have gotten ourselves sentenced to a very creative death...and the lot of us are now looking death in the eyes."


	8. Chapter 8:Fires In Plain Sight

**Chapter 8: Fires In Plain Sight~**

"Logically,if you must build a fire because you risk catching your death of cold, but you are being hunted by Hydra's finest, then you must do it in plain sight, and in a place where smoke would be expected. What better place, than on the other side of a landfill's incinerator?" Sherlock was saying.

Bucky and Sherlock were leading John and Steve through the midst of a huge landfill on the long road to Kiev. The sight had been established by the Soviet Union and still had an old incinerator for burning flammable trash to keep the dump from taking over. A band of locals still took their trash here, and had an operator burn them in the incinerator, so smoke still rose over this place all hours of the day.

"The other benefit is the limitless supply of junk to burn..." Bucky replied, drawing his jacket closer to himself.

Steve walked closely behind him, eyes wide, moving almost mechanically. John noticed this, subtly, because he could barely take his eyes off of Sherlock, but he did notice it. He made a mental note of insisting that he should be allowed to medically examine both the Sergeant and Sherlock since they had obviously just escaped the very jaws of Hell.

Steve shook his head, feeling like he was drowning on dry land.

Bucky looked more than just sick. He looked like he was _dying._

John studied Sherlock intently, making a note of the way he walked, and how his face was pinched up in a pained expression. It didn't take genius observation skills to see that the man was very uncomfortable, possibly in excruciating pain that he had just learned to cope with. It struck John like a bolt of lightning.

"My God, he's been tortured..." he thought to himself.

John was startled when Bucky stumbled, and bowed over, breaking into a horrific bout of hacking.

Steve stood gaping, mouth wide, hands reaching out like he wanted to do something to help but he didn't know what to do.

Bucky bowed over, coughing almost vicious whip-snapping coughs, and then spit up a mouthful of blood. He stood bowed over, hands on his knees for a long time, panting.

"Please, I'm a doctor. I need to have a look at you..." John said, reaching a hand out for Bucky, laying it carefully on his shoulder.

"Gah...Yes...yes that would be nice. I'm not sure if you can though...this isn't a naturally caused disease..."

They had reached the incinerator's back wall by now. Sherlock took incentive, and pulled up a trash can, and quietly began to build a fire in it.

"What can I...can I help?" Steve began, having gone the shade of school chalk.

Sherlock pulled up a few old broken crates, and paint buckets, and things he'd found lying around to sit on.

"Yes. I can inform you of the state of affairs, you can take my word as gospel, and you can form a plan of action for how we should respond to Hydra's reaction against our revolution. If you love your friend, that seems like the most sensible thing to do. He's in more danger of what his former slave masters will do to him, than of his upper respiratory failure."

Steve sank to sitting on one of the buckets,staring up at Sherlock with a horrified expression. Sherlock stared down at him face set like stone, contemplating deeply what needed to be said before he said it.

John sat Bucky down on one of the big crates, and pulled his shirt off.

"Oh...God!" John gasped, and covered his mouth.

Bucky's hand slid up his chest, somewhat ashamed.

Steve stood up, green- faced, like he would throw up.

"Secret's out..." Bucky laughed, sheepishly.

"This is how they did all of their brainwashing to me...kept me under their thumb for so long. It's like...one of those heat- seeking GPS things they've got now, but made out of some mercury thermometer that is poisoning me...I would get deathly sick like I am now, they'd capture me, give me the antidote,and then use drugs and electricity to wipe my mind. I honestly don't remember anything about the people I killed...or why I did it, or how I got there...All of that...is like a nightmare I had...where I was...someone else..."

Steve shook his head. "So Hydra got you...Forced you to kill people, and put that in your chest so you couldn't get free?"

Bucky's hand slowly crept away from the bright brass skull carved and welded bionically into his chest, much like his fake arm was attached to his shoulder.

"Well, yeah...And it worked...until I ...uhmm...remembered well enough...and I chose that I had enough of being this undead Frankenstein thing...so I broke..I broke the mechanism. Now its like being in the torture chamber all the time. I don't know how you can help me ,Doctor, you'd have to take it out..."

John and Steve were silent.

"We should probably discuss the data, and make a plan for moving out before worse befalls all of us, especially you ,Sergeant..." Sherlock said, slowly, calculating his every thought.

"Yeah, and you. Don't try and sugar coat it ,kid, the sound of your screams echoed down to me in my little bird cage. When they caught you sneaking into their base, they tortured you, manically, didn't they? Come on, don't be so shy, let's see it..." Bucky replied, wrly.

Sherlock swallowed, and slipped out of his coat and shirt too.

John gaped.

Sherlock had an iron snake with seven heads, a Greek Hydra, wrapped around his body, the heads piercing into his flesh and coming out the other side.

" Tracking devices were never meant to be so trendy... " Sherlock hissed, snarkily, smiling apologetically at John.

John was babbling, lips gone blue, and pointed at him, unable to form sensible sentences.

Steve bowed his head.

"So, let's get this straight,because you two are moving a little too fast for me... Buck, you had been captured by Hydra and bugged this whole time, until you broke the device, and when they found out what you did they had you in some sort of holding facility? And Sherlock, you broke into this facility for information, got captured, and were tortured and had that thing , which is also some kind of bugging mechansim, stitched through your skin,like a lanyard looped through a ragdoll, so that you couldn't escape without being tracked? You two met each other in prison, and conspired together to escape, and now you're in danger of being brutally executed for your rebellion?"

"Exactly! Well done, Captain Rogers, you just might be capable of the science of deduction, to some broadly spoken degree!" Sherlock gasped, eyes shining.

John swallowed, hand trembling, and coughed, standing up straight.

"Well, by God, you're not going another day with those horrible things bolted in you. Find me a place, and things to use at tools, and I'll show you just what medical expertise I'm capable of. They don't call me the X Doctor for no reason.."


End file.
